I take all my photos using a Fujifim FinePix E900 camera. Its now about 3 years old and still works fine. It took me ages to work out how to take photos of my cross stitch properly with it. It is a 9MP camera. When I bought it, 9MP was about the highest resolution that you could get for under $400.

The most important things I have found is to have a good source of white light, and a place to lay things flat so that you don’t have shadows, so that you get the true colour.

Being patient is important too, but my most favourite thing is the macro function on my camera. Its a button with a little flower on it. It means I can get within about 6-7 cm of whatever I am photographing and it will focus.

Its the difference between good close ups and blurry close ups, as before I worked out the macro function a lot of my photos used to be a bit blurry and often I wouldn’t have good light, so would look creamier/yellower than in real life.

I usually take quite a few photos and then choose which one has turned out the best. Its a method that works well for me.

So this is before I started using macro- pretty good, but could be better, and about as close as I can get without it being blurry:

I got home from work and found a lovely package in the post box from a friend from the LJ Cross Stitch community. She has been the the Zweigert factory in Germany and got me a fat quarter of black linen, and a skein of each of the colours I needed for HAEDs The Storykeeper. I am not sure what I will stitch on the linen, but I am sure I will think of something.